[CentOS-devel] Before You Get Mad About The CentOS Stream Change, Think About…

On Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 7:50 PM Konstantin Boyandin via CentOS-devel <
centos-devel at centos.org> wrote:

> On 23.12.2020 08:14, Mike McGrath wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 6:32 PM John Crisp <jcrisp at safeandsoundit.co.uk
> > <mailto:jcrisp at safeandsoundit.co.uk>> wrote:
> >
> >     On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 11:29:52 -0600
> >     Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com <mailto:mmcgrath at redhat.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> >      > On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 11:06 AM John Crisp
> >      > <jcrisp at safeandsoundit.co.uk
> >     <mailto:jcrisp at safeandsoundit.co.uk>> wrote:
> >      >
> >      > > On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 13:03:47 -0600
> >      > > Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com <mailto:mmcgrath at redhat.com>>
> >     wrote:
> > [...snip...]
>  >
> > So, of course, this is where it gets complicated.  Many, many factors
> > went into this decision across many people in Red Hat and on the board.
> > I think you honestly believe we had some meeting inside Red Hat and the
> > agenda was "How to make more money by killing CentOS."  Instead, we had
> > several discussions both inside Red Hat, outside Red Hat, etc on what to
> > do about CentOS over at least a couple of years that I was involved.
> > It's been clear to us for a while that this model was pretty unhealthy.
> > We all had our own wants out of this and I suspect no one got everything
> > they wanted.
> >
> > Many people on this list are looking to find a way forward here - to
> > understand what is going on and provide suggestions where they see it
> > might help.  It is forgivable that you and others would jump to
> > conclusions that equate to IBM, or greed, or revenue because you don't
> > have all the information we do.  But just know that when you again try
> > to boil this all down to just a revenue discussion, you're missing a lot
> > of detail that actually went into this.
>
> Oh, thank you so much, I didn't hope it could be forgivable. Now that we
> can actually be absolved, it's so much simpler to breathe.
>
> Translating your last statements into English: you (those outside of RH)
> have not that information, you won't have that information, thus you may
> not come to any conclusions.
>
>

> Again, this is extremely simple. The fundamental flaw of CentOS Linux
> was it didn't bring profits directly. On the contrary, the majority of
> sysadmins were using CentOS instead of RHEL, since CentOS was stable
> enough, was quite simple to maintain - and unless any specific
> requirements were rpesent, didn't require paying expensive bills from
> RH. That simple.
>
>
It didn't have to bring in profits, but it did have to be mutually
beneficial.  In the beginning it was, but back then OpenStack was the
future of computing.  Things change.  Take a look at Fedora - it doesn't
bring in profits.  But it is extremely useful to us and to the community.
As Matthew can tell you, it takes a lot of hard work to run a community
like that and actively balance the needs of Red Hat and the community.  We
run several communities that don't bring in profits.  Red Hat also belongs
to several foundations and other open-source groups, some of which we don't
have any productization plans but we do them because we think they're good
for the industry.

And really all I'm getting at here is that there is more to Red Hat than
profits, we've proven that over and over.  If this decision has caused you
to lose that trust, to make you think that Red Hat cares only about
profits, that's your right.


> The missed lot of details doesn't change the above simple assumption.
> CentOS Linux was too good an alternative for majority of systems, thus
> that "Carthago delenda est". That simple. No need to permeate an aura of
> mystery.
>
> What's really funny is the constant flow of BMWs (bovine metabolic
> wastes) from RH, trying to "prove" that CentOS Stream is a drop-on
> replacement for CentOS Linux (which it isn't) and that it fits 95% of
> CentOS Linux use cases (which it doesn't).
>
>
CentOS Stream isn't a drop-in replacement for CentOS Linux.  There's not
some crazy messaging to make people think they're the same.  But they're
also not entirely different and are far more compatible than what reporters
and many were writing about on the day of the announcement (which is why
we've worked so hard to correct that).

Let me give you one benefit of Stream that didn't exist in CentOS Linux
that I *CANNOT* believe hasn't come up yet.  Are you aware that there were
at two months in 2020 where CentOS Linux 8 received no security updates of
any kind?  When the next y stream comes out, the team goes to building that
y stream and stop working on the current version.  People touting security
and stability either weren't even aware of this, or have just decided not
to discuss it.  I can't imagine Stream would have that problem.

But no, make no mistake.  Chris's blog was correct.  CentOS Stream and
CentOS Linux are different things in terms of deliverables.  While at the
same time RHEL and CentOS Stream are extremely closely related and the
nuance between them will take a while for people to understand.

        -Mike



> Happy New Year!
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Konstantin Boyandin
> system administrator (ProWide Labs Ltd. - IPHost Network Monitor)
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